Shock Wave, a Black and Blue story
by Orion Lyonesse
Summary: Vila, badly injured, confesses a secret that sends shock waves through Avon and nothing will ever be the same again. A/V.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: I don't own these Blake's Seven characters, but I do like to play around with them, usually to their discomfort!_

"Vila!" He heard his name cried from far, far away. At first, he didn't even connect the name to himself. Finally, with the last of his will, he pulled his fogged mind back to focus blurrily on the face hovering above him.

"Avon? You came."

Shock held Avon in place only a moment before he was cutting Vila free of the wreckage, carelessly tossing pieces of debris in every direction. Soon Vila's torso was free, but Avon found he hadn't enough strength to even budge the beam that had fallen across Vila's hips and legs.

Knowing there was no help in reach, he could only make Vila comfortable. Disregarding the danger and debris, he sank heavily onto the floor of the rubble beside Vila, easing himself under to create a lap for Vila's head and shoulders to pillow on. Through it all, Vila lay silent, the only sign of life his rising and falling breast and his too bright eyes following Avon's every movement.

They sat in silence, Avon idly stroking Vila's hair with gentle fingers. Vila closed his eyes wearily for several minutes, then opened them again, shifting his head slightly to look into Avon's face.

With infinite weariness, he asked, "'m gonna die, aren't I?"

Avon tried to hush him, but Vila demanded the truth with his eyes.

Avon sighed and nodded. "Maybe, if Liberator doesn't come back this way very soon."

Vila was silent, conserving strength, Avon thought, until he spoke again.

"If I have to die, I'd rather it be in your arms. 've loved you since I first saw you…in that cell." His voice got weaker toward the end and Avon had to lean closer to hear him. Vila's words sent lances of shock through his whole being.

"But…" he protested, "you never…I didn't know…" Vila smiled softly at having nonplused Avon so thoroughly.

Avon swallowed, trying to regain his composure. Finally, he said quietly, "You never indicated an interest, Vila. You had to know I was bisexual. Why keep it a secret from me?"

Vila turned his head, dropping his eyes in discomfort. "'cause I'm Delta and you're Alpha. Not right," he mumbled.

"Idiot," Avon cursed sharply. "Class never meant anything to me. It was always the person inside."

Vila looked up again, hope shining through the pain filling his eyes. "'s true?"

Avon smiled one of his rarely used genuine smiles. It lit up his dark features and reached all the way up to his warm brown eyes. "Yes, Vila, It's true. You've never been just a Delta to me."

Happy now, Vila sighed and passed out.

Avon blinked in alarm, reaching one hand to check for a pulse. He found it, but it was weaker than before. He cursed then, as his inability to help his friend came crashing down on him. Despair threatened to blanket him when heard the familiar sound of the teleport.

Blake and Cally wavered into view, searched the ruins a moment, then picked their way through the rubble to Avon and Vila, the only living beings amidst a sea of destruction.

"Cally, help him! I think he's dying. I couldn't get that damn beam off to examine him."

Gently disengaging Vila's head, Avon rose and, with Blake's added strength, hoisted the offending beam and threw it aside. Taking the teleport bracelets Blake handed him, he secured one on Vila's wrist, and the other on his own. With Cally still crouched by Vila, Avon snarled, "Teleport NOW!"


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: I don't own these Blake's Seven characters, but I do like to play around with them, usually to their discomfort!_

Avon had scarcely spoken when Liberator coalesced around them, Jenna sitting at the teleport controls, Gan standing at her side.

"Get a stretcher, Gan," Avon ordered.

The big man frowned. "Can't I just carry him, Avon? Cally?"

They both looked at Cally, who made a quick decision and nodded.

"Yes, it'll be faster and I don't think you can hurt him any more than he is already." She looked toward the pilot. "Jenna, get ORAC, will you?"

Jenna raced off for the flight deck as the rest of the crew followed Gan and his limp silent burden toward Medical.

Cally had already hooked Vila up to the med computers by the time Jenna arrived, bearing the cranky box of lights they'd come to depend on.

"ORAC," Cally began urgently, "what is Vila's condition and treatment?"

+He has numerous broken bones and some severe internal bleeding. However, you have reached him in time. Using the treatment I've entered in the medical computers, he will eventually recover.+

Avon, who had been pacing beside Vila's bed, sank bonelessly into a chair. He sighed, deflating somehow, his head bowed, his graceful hands lying inert in his lap, white leaves on a dusty black ground.

Blake noted his reaction with puzzlement. It wasn't like the surly tech to take anyone else's injuries seriously, let alone Vila's. The little thief had cultivated the art of being invisible, most of the time anyway. His undeniable skill with locks, whether physical or electronic, did occasionally bring him to the fore, but usually Vila was as prominent in their thoughts as wallpaper.

"Cally, what can we do to help?" Blake asked. After all, he was their leader, and a good leader had to care for all his crew, didn't he?

The young Auron finished checking the course of treatment, then turned. "Nothing right now. I can handle the treatment and take the first watch over Vila. You all go on." She returned her attention to working over the unconscious man. When she looked up again, only Avon remained, still seated, staring at Vila. Cally had seen that look before, when Avon was presented with a new technical challenge or a fascinating bit of alien technology. Like wheels were turning in his head, chewing on some new, novel problem. Now why would Vila present Avon with a challenge? For that matter, wasn't Vila an open book to all of them by now?

Gently, she prodded, "You don't have to stay, Avon. I can handle this. Really."

To her surprise, knowing how he disliked Medical in particular and illness in general, he protested. "No, I'd rather stay with him for awhile, if you don't mind." He shifted his eyes almost furtively, she thought, from her face back to Vila's.

"Well, all right. When I'm finished, you can take the first watch. Okay?"

He replied almost absently, "Yes, of course."

Vila swam sluggishly to the surface the next day. Without opening his eyes, he perceived that two people were in the room with him. From her scent, he identified one as Cally, fussing with the medical computers. From the soft snore on the opposite side of his bed, he knew the other was Avon, because he always sounded like that when he fell asleep with his head tilted back. He'd caught Avon often enough sleeping when he'd come to relieve the tech on watch.

Opening his eyes, he found Cally leaning over him, making a shushing motion.

Very quietly, she asked, "How are you, Vila? You shouldn't be in pain, not with all those drugs in your system."

He tried to speak, but found his mouth too dry to manage. Cally saw his problem and brought him some ice chips to suck on. As they melted, Vila sighed with relief, the parched tissue of his mouth, tongue and throat absorbing the liquid. Gradually, the desert in his mouth gave over and he smiled.

"Better?"

"Much," he managed hoarsely. "Am I gonna die, Cally?"

Cally smiled fondly down at him. "Of course not, Vila, although I haven't been able to convince that one of it yet." She nodded at the sleeping tech. "He's been beside you almost every minute since we rescued you. I couldn't even get him to go to his own bed to sleep. Maybe now that you're awake, he'll go get some rest." She sounded exasperated with the whole situation. "Anyway, Vila, you'll be here in Medical for awhile yet, till your bones have finished mending and the internal damage is repaired. Right now, you need to rest."

Vila glanced thoughtfully at Avon. He looked so uncomfortable in that hard plastic chair, his dark head indeed tilted back against the wall, one hand in his lap and the other arm hanging abandoned at his side. He hadn't even changed out of his dusty black tunic and pants yet. How very unlike Avon that was.

Vila frowned, chewing on his lower lip. Something had changed between them, he sensed, else why would Avon still be here? Had he, Vila, done something or said something? He couldn't quite remember what had happened after the explosion. With Avon though, he'd learned from hard experience, it was best to deal with uncertainties head on than let them gather momentum and come back to bite him when he wasn't looking.

"Cally? Do you think you could leave us alone for awhile, please?"

"Vila," she protested, "you still need watching…"

"I know, but I'll wake Avon after you leave. We…need to talk, I think. I'll try to convince him to rest, too. Okay?" he pleaded.

She considered for a moment. She felt responsible for her patient. Still…It wasn't like Vila could get into trouble medically in only a few minutes, connected to the medical computers.

"Well, okay, Vila, but I won't be gone long, you hear?" With a gentle pat on his bare shoulder, one of the few places not bandaged or bruised, she left medbay, the door swishing closed quietly behind her.

Vila waited a few moments, chewing pensively on his lower lip, watching Avon sleeping. He hadn't a clue what nest of Rigelian ridge crawlers he was stepping into here. He just knew he had to find out, before it was too late.

When Vila couldn't hear Cally's footsteps anymore, then called softly, "Avon? Avon, please wake up."

_A/N: One chapter to go!_


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: I don't own these Blake's Seven characters, but I do like to play around with them, usually to their discomfort!_

When Vila couldn't hear Cally's footsteps anymore, then called softly, "Avon? Avon, please wake up."

Avon started, a snore transforming into a snort. He scanned the room, sleep-fogged brain searching for the emergency. When he saw Vila was awake, he shot up from the chair and crossed the space between them in one long stride, standing by Vila's bedside, careful not to touch his bandaged, splinted body. Causing Vila any more pain was unthinkable. Avon's hands hovered for an instant, wanting desperately to touch the man, then fell to his sides, suddenly lifeless.

"You're awake! How do you feel? Is there anything I can get you? Are…"

"Avon, stop. You're babbling." Amusement colored Vila's raspy voice and a smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

Avon closed his mouth with a snap, but continued staring.

Vila found Avon's silence as even more disturbing than his babbling, especially when he felt the building pressure of Avon's stare. It was like whole conversations were going on behind his eyes, flashing past in a dizzying parade Vila couldn't possibly decipher.

His breathing hitched a couple of times before he spoke. "Avon, say something, please? Just…just don't babble. That's my specialty, anyway." His voice was growing weaker now, his reserve of strength, like sand through fingers, draining away.

"You're an idiot, Vila," he said fondly.

Avon's words electrified Vila. Every word he'd said to Avon amidst the wreckage came rushing back. His eyes widened; his breath quickened. His face flushed red, clear up into his thinning, sandy hairline.

"You're lovely when you blush, Vila," Avon said, trying with little success to hide a smile.

"Avon, don't tease me. I'm sick, after all," Vila complained out of habit. He didn't know how to react to a smiling Avon, especially since he couldn't escape.

"As to that, we shall have to discuss your physical rehabilitation and mental reconditioning."

"Excuse me? Mental reconditioning?" Vila squeaked, confused and a touch frightened. 'Reconditioning' was something painful that was done to political prisoners like Blake, not lowly thieves.

"Your attitude readjustment," Avon clarified jauntily. Turning serious, he held Vila's gaze with his own, willing the thief to understand. "This idea you have that class makes a difference between us. It has to go. Completely. Now." Leaning over the thoroughly incapacitated Vila, Avon kissed him fully on the lips, a gentle brushing that deepened for a moment, then was gone. Straightening, he waited for Vila's response.

Vila blinked and opened his mouth several times before any words managed to emerge. Could Avon possibly mean what Vila hoped he meant? He'd loved Avon so hopelessly for so long but from afar. And now, because of one deathbed confession…well, he'd thought it was, at the time…he might just have a chance at having his secret, his treasured, his hopeless dreams come true.

It wasn't a chance he was prepared to pass up. It might never come again.

"Uh, right," he began, thinking a fast as his blurry, scrambled brain could. "It… might take awhile, you know, to get this conditioning just right." He smiled tentatively up at Avon, arching one eyebrow. "Do you think you'd like to be in charge of my…therapy?" he asked, all innocent brown eyes.

"I think that could be arranged," Avon drawled. "Yes, that is an excellent idea." His eyes twinkled wickedly, to Vila's delight.

At that moment, the door swished open again. Cally entered and was totally confused by the tableaux she'd walked in on. When they both turned guilty faces toward her, for all the world like a pair of truant children caught in a transgression, she put on a stern expression. "Avon, OUT! NOW! You both need rest." She advanced on them, flapping her hands at Avon in a shooing motion.

Instead of arguing with her, as she expected, Avon smiled, nodded, and left without another word. Vila's eyes followed Avon out the door, then closed in contented, healing sleep.

_I'll never understand humans. Never!_ Cally thought, as she sat down to watch over Vila's slumber.

_A/N: If you've enjoyed my story or have constructive criticism, please review! Reviews make new stories come about quicker._


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